


Voltas

by pseudocitrus



Series: Teacher/Student Human AU [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Drama, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haise gets a new job, but Rize and Shuu worry about what will happen to him when a particular day comes around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> asked/prompted by an anon on tumblr!
>
>> Out of interest, in the student/teacher au, does Tsuki and Rize know about Sasaki being in love with Touka?
> 
> disclaimer: [teacher/student AU](http://neimana.tumblr.com/post/113405848333/pls-tell-me-your-haise-touka-student-teacher-au) is originally [neimana](http://tmblr.co/m72_-XOcOR-9HvRKFu_YrDg)’s! this is like...a fanfic of her AU, & veers from the timeline she wrote originally.
> 
> **please see CHAPTER 1 end notes for additional content warnings if you need to.**
> 
> hope you’re having a good day and taking care out there!

“So,” Rize says after the waiter walks away. “What’s the good news?”

“Well...” Haise smiles at them, broadly. “I got a job!”

Rize and Shuu start, in astonishment. They congratulate him, and then demand details, and as usual, Haise tells them everything. He’s substituting at a high school until the end of the year — teaching literature — and if things go well, there’s a good chance he’ll be hired permanently.

“That’s great, Haise.”

“ _Magnifique!_ You’ll be hired for sure!”

“Yes! Well, I hope so. There’s...there’s just one thing.”

It’s a couple hours away from them, he explains, and immediately they both know exactly what he’s saying.

“I suppose we’ll have to visit, “ Shuu says, and Haise nods, and they are sure he knows exactly what they mean too.

_Of course we’ll be there._

The mood is falling.

“Anyway, it sounds like a good opportunity. Just don’t break too many high school student hearts out there, Haise-sensei,” Rize says cheerfully. Haise grimaces. Shuu kicks her under the table, and Rize glares.

 _What_? she demands silently.

 _Like this,_ he mouths.

“Haise-kun,” Shuu calls, “tell us what books you’re planning to teach,” and Haise’s eyes light. He launches into it, and Shuu shoots Rize a triumphant smile, and she huffs.

Later, Rize and Shuu check their work calendar, and both of them request _that day_ off.

:::

“And… _voila_!”

Shuu opens the door and sweeps his arm with a flourish. Haise blinks.

“O-oh...wow.” Haise swallows. “It’s...um, it’s...”

“Tiny, unfortunately,” Shuu says apologetically, and Haise coughs.

“...right. Tiny.”

“Well, you know how city living is, Haise-kun. Under the circumstances this is the best I could manage.”

Shuu gestures for Haise to follow as he shows him the amenities: a bathroom with a porcelain tub and fancy toilet, a combination washer-dryer, a Western-style living room with a widescreen television, a tatami room, a balcony with a lounging chair and table, a kitchen outfitted with a stove and an oven and…

“Look!” Shuu exclaims. “There’s even some kind of statue here.”

“That’s a rice cooker,” Haise says.

“Oh? How lovely, I’m glad you recognize the style.” Shuu sets the rice cooker down carefully and gives it a good pat and yelps when the lid flips open. Haise reaches over to close it, and Shuu sighs.

“You’re so good at fine arts, Haise-kun. Those students won’t know what hit them.”

“Well, it’s literature that I’m teaching, not...fine arts. Or cooking, for that matter. In any case,” he says quickly, “this is all...well...much more than I expected. Thank you so much.”

“ _Non, non,_ don’t thank me yet, we aren’t finished!”

Shuu guides him to the last unopened door, and indicates that Haise should open it himself. Haise does, cautiously. He observes as Haise’s gaze scans the room, first with surprise, and then confusion, and then surprise again. The room’s walls are completely eclipsed by empty, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

“Kanae was throwing a fit about assembling all of these,” Shuu explains, “but I knew if I left you with just one or two they’d collapse in a week. We need this to last so you can store all your little books when they realize how good you are and hire you on permanently. Ah...you like it, right? Haise-kun?”

“It’s... _yes_. It’s great. _Fantastique,_ in fact.” Haise smiles at him, and Shuu beams.

“Then,” he announces, “ _now_ you may thank me,” and he shuts the door.

:::

“Did he like it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did he seem okay?”

“It...seems that way. But in a couple months...”

“Yeah. I’ll go visit him next.”

:::

Afterward, they wander into the kitchen. Despite the fact that it’s evening, Haise starts making a pot of coffee. Rize leans against the counter, wincing as the steel chills her bare thighs.

“So,” Rize says, as Haise watches the coffee drip down. “How was your first week?”

“It was...good. Yes,” he says, decisively, and with a rub of his chin, “it was good,” and Rize snorts.

“Alright, how many troublemakers are there?”

“None,” Haise says. Rize stares, waiting, as he pours out coffee into a little mug.

“...one,” he admits, finally. “But she’s not really a _troublemaker._ Well, not too much, anyway. She’s just...a little behind. I decided to set up an extra tutoring session with her.”

“So? Has she improved?” Shuu asks when they meet up a couple weeks later, and Haise grimaces. This time they didn’t have much time for much other than chatting; Haise had come home late, because of tutoring.

“N-no. She’s more behind than I thought. I actually have multiple sessions with her every week now.”

“What?” Shuu wrinkles his nose. “How troublesome. Just place her back a grade and be finished.”

“ _No,_ ” Haise snaps. He bites his lip. “I — I m-mean — sorry. I said that too sharply. No, I can’t just...leave her. She’s...”

He trails. “Well, to be honest, she’s a lot like me.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, she also lost both her parents. And...” He trails.

The next visit is Rize.

“You never explained. How bad could it be? You’re not going to tell me that a high school girl is a veteran of _gang wars_?” Rize laughs, and stops when Haise doesn’t join along. She clears her throat.

“At least tell me she had a better name than ‘Centipede,’” she says, trying to lighten the mood. Haise smiles, without humor.

“She didn’t tell me, but I’ve been investigating a little. I’m pretty sure she was ‘Rabbit.’”

“Cute.”

The coffee machine begins to emit a tune; it’s finished. Haise pours himself a cup. After sipping, he coughs and frowns down at his mug.

“Something the matter?” Rize asks, and Haise shakes his head.

“No, it’s...it’s fine. It’s just...much worse than I remember.”

Rize plucks the bag of ground coffee up from the counter. “It looks like the same kind you had last time.”

“Yeah, it is. It’s probably because...well. Nevermind.” He drinks anyway.

:::

The next time the three of them get together, Haise is eager to show them a piece of paper.

“Look!” he says, and they do. There’s a lot of kanji, and a lot of numbers.

“Wonderful,” Shuu says uneasily.

“What is it?” Rize asks, taking the paper and squinting.

“Her score! Well, it’s my entire class’s scores, but the important number is here. This one is Touka-chan’s — ah, I mean, my student’s — the one I’m tutoring.”

They nod, slowly.

“It’s...good...?” Shuu ventures, and Haise’s head bobs.

“It’s _great_! It’s the first time she’s done this well. She’s learning. She’s _really_ learning. And — and I think she’s even starting to enjoy reading.”

“That’s great, Haise. It looks like being a teacher really suits you after all,” Rize says warmly, and Haise smiles.

“Thank you. I really hope that I get to stay.”

He seems even happier than when he gets an opportunity to go to a bookstore, and won’t stop talking about tutoring that ex-troublemaker of his. He’s practically effervescent — and for some weeks, both of them hope secretly that the mood will continue unabated even though there’s only a little over a month left.

:::

It doesn’t.

Work picks up, and when they do have some spare time to go see them, he’s always busy — grading assignments or exams, or preparing tutoring sessions, or whatever else.

He’s being honest with them, probably. As the day comes closer and closer, however, his responses become more curt, until finally he’s just saying, “No. I’m busy.”

Rize and Shuu exchange frowns.

“Haise-kun,” Shuu says, sweetly, into the phone receiver. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks. Thank you.”

“That’s so nice to hear. Listen, don’t worry. We’ll be there for the anniver —” Shuu cuts himself off as Rize hits his shoulder. “Ah, we’ll be there tomorrow, okay? We’ll be there.”

For a long moment Haise says nothing.

Then they hear, “Thank you. I...would really appreciate that.”

:::

The next day, there’s a storm.

All the trains are stalled by electrical issues and then so crowded that the two of them are lucky to have a position smushed up against the windows. They race as fast as they can, but by the time they make it to the restaurant, it’s two hours past their meeting time. The employees can’t tell them anything except that a man fitting their description left without paying his bill, which they hand to them, alongside his abandoned apartment keys.

 _”Merde,”_ Shuu hisses, checking the receipt. Rize snatches it from him, and hisses too.

 _”Shit.”_ The only thing Haise ordered was alcohol.

They pay for him, and call his phone over and over, to no effect. They run through the downpour, searching every other restaurant for him, and even nearby love and capsule hotels. At loss, they start speeding through the bookstores and the library and even a manga cafe, peering over the low walls in hopes of spotting him.

No luck, no luck, no luck.

It’s three in the morning when they trudge, dripping and muddy, back to his apartment. It’s just so that they both have a private place to compose their increasingly obvious distress, and both of them are dumbfounded when they arrive and find Haise sleeping peacefully in his own bed. Shuu claps his hand over Rize’s mouth to muffle her scream of fury, and restrains her from shaking him awake.

“I’m going to kill him!” she snarls in the living room as Shuu closes the door. She was so worried. She was so _worried_. And — “I’m going to fucking _kill him_!”

“I want to kill him too,” Shuu tells her, flatly. “But let’s wait, just a little.”

“How did that idiot get back in here? _How_?”

“Let’s check.”

“Check? What the fuck are you talking about? How can we _check_?”

Shuu opens up a compartment in a wall nearby and starts withdrawing a device with a little monitor.

“Shuu, what are...what is...is that a _camera_?”

“Of course! For security purposes. We can’t have anyone stealing Haise-kun’s precious possessions. Even if all he really owns are books.”

“How do you even know how to use something like that?”

“A little mouse taught me,” he replies, absentmindedly. He sets the device on the low table in the room, and presses buttons until the screen flickers to life. They both crane over at the little screen, which shows Haise sleeping in bed: his current position. Shuu rewinds the footage. As they watch, another figure emerges onto the screen.

“Who the fuck is _that_?” Rize demands. Shuu doesn’t answer; he keeps rewinding, so fast that the picture blurs. He goes until the room turns black, and then presses play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> additional content warnings:
> 
>   * !!teacher/student stuff!!
>   * non-explicit references to nsfw material (rize/haise/shuu — NOT in the teacher/student stuff)
>   * (over-)drinking
>   * reference to death
>   * and uh, a lot of angst/hurt/comfort. a…lot;;;
> 

> 
> thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow, Touka manages to open the door to his apartment and grabs Sasaki-sensei before he slumps to the ground.

“Come on, sensei,” she groans, hitching his arm back up over her shoulder. “Just...a little...further.”

Sasaki-sensei doesn’t answer. She shoves the door shut with her foot, and hoists him up over the entryway, and removes her shoes and helps him tug off his. They scatter droplets of water, and Touka tosses aside the spare key that the lobby guard gave her. Fortunately, he’d believed her bullshit about being Sasaki-sensei’s niece.

“Ojamashimasu,” she mutters. She enters the hallway, and stops, uneasily.

This place is strangely familiar. She turns her head, finding herself weirdly certain of where his bathroom is, and is disturbed when it’s exactly where she expected it to be. She clears her throat.

“Hey, do you need to throw up?” she asks. Sasaki-sensei shakes his head, and his brow brushes hers, and she swallows.

“O-okay. Good.”

Her heart begins to race — probably from the effort of dragging him around everywhere. She better get this done as soon as possible. She staggers around the apartment with him, trying to find his bedroom, and huffs when she just discovers one living room after another, and even a balcony.

This last room _has_ to be his bedroom, and she’s relieved when the door opens and the first thing she sees is shelves of books — and, sure enough, his bed. They trip on a couple novels on the way in, but she finally manages to dump him onto his mattress. He lands, and makes no further move to arrange himself. Touka waits, and then kneels beside him, knuckling his shoulder.

“Sensei,” Touka calls. “Sensei.”

No response. She starts to sigh, but stops mid-inhale.

This room...smells...

...really good.

It smells...a lot like him. Like what she breathes when he leans over to indicate something about a book passage. Like the little whiff she gets when she cracks open a new novel that he’s loaned her. It smells like coffee, and paper, and ink, and another smell, the comfy one that is only around when he is. She has a sudden desire to wrap herself up in one of his blankets, and feels her face warm.

“Sensei,” she says, “I think I should go,” but he doesn’t reply. His body is totally still. Her blood chills.

“Oh, fuck! Shit, _shit!_ Sensei? Sensei?!” Did he drink so much that he poisoned himself?

“D-don’t die!” she finds herself crying. “Don’t die! Sensei? Sensei? Say something!”

She shoves at him furiously until he rolls over, and then is stunned to see that his eyes are glassy. He waves her away, and then sits up, swinging his knees over the edge of the mattress. He flings his glasses aside and crams his palms against his eyes. He takes a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m n-not going to die,” he says quietly.

And then: “I’m sorry, Touka-chan. That you had to...you really shouldn’t have...I’m sorry.”

“I-it’s nothing. It’s not, um, anything. Are you okay?

“Sensei,” she says, when he doesn’t respond. “Are you okay?”

“N-not...not right now,” he answers. “But I will be tomorrow.”

Touka bites her lip. He says nothing else. Outside, rain is rattling against the window.

Finally, she stands, and leaves. She returns minutes later, with a glass of water, and a first aid kit. She scrapes his hands down from his face and he blinks blearily at the glass.

“I’m not leaving until you finish drinking this,” she tells him, and after a moment he takes the glass and sips. She sits down on the bed beside him, opening the kit and rummaging through it, and then she takes his other hand and begins dabbing iodine on the ruptured knuckles.

“You’ve got a pretty good punch, sensei,” she mutters. “Those people weren’t expecting that at all.”

Neither was she, honestly. Sasaki-sensei had just always looked so...soft. His fingers look okay too, though the sound they’d made when he cracked them had been so loud she’d thought he’d snapped the bones in half. She risks a glance up at him. Sasaki-sensei had looked...not like himself.

He looks okay now, though, even if he’s drenched, and exhausted, and clearly really drunk. He’s swaying. His fingers curl as the iodine stings him, but otherwise he remains still and quiet and pliant as she wraps a bandage around the ball of his hand.

“Hand it over,” she says, pointing, and she feels a little burst of delight as she catches the corner of his mouth tilt up, slightly. He switches the glass to his right hand, and shifts, giving her the left one to administer to.

Once she’s done, he flexes his fingers experimentally.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, and she looks down at the first aid kit, fumbling to put everything back in place and set it, for now, on the ground.

“Y-yeah. Of course. Hey,” she says, “keep drinking the water,” but he just stares off into space.

“Sensei,” she snaps. “Drink it! Or else I’m going to dump it all over you!”

It’s not much of a threat, given the fact that he’s already pretty soaked through, but it works. He takes a couple good gulps, and when he finishes, he wipes his mouth with a sigh.

“My friend died today,” he says, suddenly, and Touka blinks.

“U-uh, w-what? I’m — I’m sorry —”

“No, it’s not...well...what I mean is...he died today, years ago. Today’s the anniversary of his death.”

Silence.

“Um...how did he die?”

“It was my fault,” he answers, and his voice cracks, and Touka grabs the water and shoves it into his hand and he holds it and does nothing else.

“I was an idiot,” he continues, so softly she can barely hear him over the rain. “I...I made a huge mistake.”

Seeing him this miserable makes her chest ache. It’s hardly like how he is normally: cheerful, and talkative, and annoying, in a good way. And patient. And unreasonably kind to her. And happy whenever she is happy.

“We were all huge idiots in the past,” she reassures him, and he makes a lifeless smile and this is so unlike him too that she looks away, unnerved.

Touka’s hands fist in her lap. This is the first time that she’s ever glimpsed something beyond her vision of him as the exams-obsessed teacher. There’s…there’s so much that she doesn’t know about him, this person that she sees everyday, and talks to even more than she talks to Yoriko. She knows close to nothing about him, even though he’s spent so much time helping her. Even though he’s done so much for her sake.

Something in her chest feels swollen; it rises, blooms and catches in her throat. For once, she really wants to do something for him too. Something more than just leave coffee on his desk.

She finds herself leaning forward.

“Tell me about your friend,” she says, and he sighs, like he was hoping she would ask. He sets the water aside again, and Touka lets him.

He’s mumbling, and his voice is slurring, but he talks, and talks, and talks. How they met after his parents died, how he pulled Sasaki-sensei single-handedly from the stupor of loneliness. How they gazed at the stars together. How he was the person who became the new marker for where Sasaki-sensei belonged. How he’d searched when Sasaki-sensei had gone missing. How bright his blood had been. How his pulse...slowed...a-and stopped...right beneath his fingertips.

That’s when one of the tears glimmering in his eyes finally breaks free, and slips down his cheek. Touka feels her own vision blur, and before she knows what she’s doing she’s reaching forward, and wrapping her arms around Sasaki-sensei’s shoulders, and hugging him tightly, pulling his face against her shoulder. He stiffens, and then his body goes slack. He trembles. His arms reach up and circle loosely around her waist, and Touka holds him as his soundless sobs fade into deep, exhausted sleep.

:::

Then she arranges him carefully on the bed, and stands. She tugs a blanket over him, and finds his glasses, and places them on his bed stand. She leaves, switching off the lights.

The monitor goes black. In the reflection of its screen is Haise, whose eyes are wide.

Rize and Shuu whirl around, gasping.

“H-Haise!”

“Haise-kun?!”

Haise doesn’t answer; he just curls his hand over his mouth. His face is paled.

“What…what have I…” Haise’s legs quake; he drops down at the table beside them.

“I’m sorry about your friend, Haise,” Rize says, carefully, and Haise winces.

“It’s...well...thank you. It...happened a long time ago. But...r-right now, more than that...how did I...what am I going to do?”

His voice fades, and they don’t know what to say. After a while, Shuu puts a hand to his forehead.

“Unbelievable,” he whispers. “Even though…even though you’ve been so pleased. I thought…I assumed it was just teaching…it didn’t even occur to me.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Haise protests. “I was just — I don’t know — I don’t know what I was doing. I was drunk —”

He...doesn’t get it at all. Rize resists the urge to hit him.

How is it not obvious? The way he’d reached for her — the way he’d left himself completely open —

“I was drunk,” he repeats, and Rize grabs his shoulder and makes him look her in the eye.

“Haise,” she says, as patiently as she can manage. “You never told us details about...about that day. You never even got close, no matter how fucking drunk you were.”

Haise opens his mouth — then closes it — then opens it again. He croaks.

“I...I don’t...I didn’t...it hit me really hard this year. Neither of you were here. I...it was...the whole thing was an accident. I — I don’t even know how she found me —”

“Shut up about that already!” Rize snaps. “Who cares if she dragged you back home? The police could have done that. Any _random person_ could have done that. That’s — well, it’s probably not great, but that’s _not_ the main problem!”

“Wh-what? Then...then what...?”

“Haise-kun,” Shuu says, with anguish. “You never showed us that part of you.”

“But you did to _her,_ ” Rize hisses. “Why her? And why are you so happy to spend all this time tutoring her? Is it _really_ just that you enjoy teaching?”

“I...well, of course I...what else would it be?”

He still doesn’t get it.

And then he does.

“You can’t mean — _no._ _No!_ It’s — it’s not — it’s _not_ like that. Not at all. I don’t — I can’t — no. _No._ ”

They stare, pained, as he babbles. He tries to stand, and immediately groans in pain and sits down again, clutching his head.

:::

They help him to the couch in front of the television, and make him coffee, and a burger steak. They put on a movie, and then another one, and then another. They stay the whole day, beneath blankets, sitting on either side of him, and don’t mention it, at all.

Night falls. The credits of their fourth movie roll. Rize clears her throat.

“Well, that one was okay,” she announces. “What did you think?”

“Passable,” Shuu says. They glance over at Haise.

“Haise-kun?” he prompts. “What do you think?”

The skin beneath Haise’s eyes is even darker than it was this morning. His voice, too, is hoarse.

“I think,” he whispers, “that I need a new job.”


End file.
